Dark Cloud/Dark Chronicle

noodler

Can anyone tell me anyone tell me about any of these games, I haven't tried them but keep hereing about them being some of the best RPGS on PS2.

Retr0gamer

Haven't played them either but I've heard Drak Cloud was decent enough but Dark Chronicle really is something special. They are made by Level 5 and to be perfectly honest I haven't played a game of theirs that has been anything less than brilliant.

noodler

Level 5? As in Dragon Quest VIII?

I am currently playing thorugh that as we speak and could not be more impressed. Absolute hidden gem, available very cheap too.

I'll have to check out chronicle at least.

Retr0gamer

Yep the very same Level 5. Dragon Quest VIII is a masterpiece. You should check out their other games like Jeanne D'Arc, Rogue Galaxy etc. Ever since Square Enix turned to absolute crap I've been glad these guys have been around pumping out quality RPGs.

noodler

Are they both Ps2 games?
Know very little about each, at least Square published DQ VIII.

I liked ff10 and 12 to be honest.

Just finished playing 6 which I found to be somewat of a chore.

Rhyme

Both on PS2.

Dark Chronicle is pretty good as long as you play carefully. Weapons break and you need to sustain your character so if you go nuts or don't plan ahead, you'll end up hating the game.

Retr0gamer

Jeanne D'Arc is for PSP.

I didn't get along with FFXII. They took a lot of control away from the player which made it very boring for me. The dungeons were far too long and got boring and samey very quickly. It's a shame they were far too long because the boss battles were good and showed the battle system could work if it was used sparingly. The story was bloody awful though which is surprising since it came from the guys who did Vagrant Story. Thought FFX was brilliant. I think my thoughts on how much i love FFVI have been expressed in the FF forum

Sqaure only published DQVIII and had nothing to do with the games development it was all Level 5 who took inspiration from the previous developer chunsoft.

Rhyme

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The story was bloody awful though which is surprising since it came from the guys who did Vagrant Story.

I thought the story wasn't that bad, it read like a sci-fi novel if you were able to remember the last few things that happened (made difficult by the grinding between areas ).

Then again, compared to Vagrant Story, it's no great shake.

Sephiroth_dude

I played dark chonicle before,great game,loved how you could build your own weapons,never finished it though,as it was a friends and he wanted it back.

noodler

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Jeanne D'Arc is for PSP.

I didn't get along with FFXII. They took a lot of control away from the player which made it very boring for me. The dungeons were far too long and got boring and samey very quickly. It's a shame they were far too long because the boss battles were good and showed the battle system could work if it was used sparingly. The story was bloody awful though which is surprising since it came from the guys who did Vagrant Story. Thought FFX was brilliant. I think my thoughts on how much i love FFVI have been expressed in the FF forum

Sqaure only published DQVIII and had nothing to do with the games development it was all Level 5 who took inspiration from the previous developer chunsoft.

I thought 12's story was so bad it is unreal, I feel more emotion for the mute HERO in DQVIII. The actual gameplay though, playing ff6 just makes me appreciate 12's free-roaming system more. Battle is a joy (obviously it was a beautiful game), I couldn't have been arsed using anything but basic gambits tho. Weak against Ice etc. FFX was brilliant, despite random battles, the weakness based system of the enemies, wakka VS flying, Auron VS armoured, etc andmore than anything OVERKILL system, a real reward for finding a regular enemies weakness and using the appropriate move instead of just pressing X constantly when levelling. Plus I loved Blitz and Auorn in particular.

What a rant....Square still had to publish a quality game. with DGVIII and they did. I just beat Dhoulmagus, toughest non-optional boss I have fought in ages,, got him the 4th time.


I might see if I can get Dark Chronicle then, dunno if Dark Cloud is available anymore.

Retr0gamer

I had my gambits set up in such a way that I could just rest the controller on my knee and use one palm to control the movement of the party, no need to input any commands. Made the game really boring. Even worse was the lack of MP your party had when you ran out all you could do was run around in circles until it built back up.

I did no grinding and found the uninterupted story to be absolute garbage. It was just a long series of fetch quests and every so often you would be told by supporting characters about interesting battles that take place away from the main game. It's like, great I'm off looking for hokery pokery magic amulets and **** killing mundane beast after mundane beast using a battle system that looks after itself with no input form the player while there's a massive ship to ship battle happening miles away that actually sounds like fun.

Dhoulmagus was a right pain. Dragon quest VIII really does require a certain amount of levelling up by the player which is it's only flaw. I didn't seem to mind it that much in that game for some reason although I had to do a horrendous amount for the last boss. Take god for gamefaqs telling me a decent place to level up super fast without wasting my life away.

noodler

Fair enough I thought 12 was a polished effort, beautiful game, the mark system was very rewarding, chaining wasn't bad either, just the story I agree was crap.

Had to beat Dhoulmagus without multiheal, just had to get a few leafs and mp replensishers. Weird, not one tough fight up til then (bar maybe the infamous monster Dumbking) then Dhoulmagus is rock.

12 was great in that you could beat some of the marks with low levels. The Flan in the sewers, beat him when he first cbecome available (White mousse I think)-twas a challenge.